In at least fourmeetings or conferencecalls with Federal Reserve staff since December, its representatives included a former official of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

And in at least 36 contacts with federal regulators since August 2010, JPMorgan was represented by a former staff director of a Senate Banking subcommittee who is registered to lobby on the bank’s behalf.

Many of the meetings and phone calls focused on the biggest rewriting of Wall Street rules in decades—the implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act, which was adopted in response to the financial crisis of 2008 and has profound implications for banks, investors, and financial consumers.

JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon’s recentappearances on Capitol Hill to explain a multi-billion dollar trading blunder at the bank have cast a spotlight on the firm’s political connections. News reports by American Banker and ProPublica have described a roster of former congressional aides who now work for JPMorgan, the nation’s largest banking firm, as well as extensive political contributions from JPMorgan employees and political action committees to members of Congress.

Federal records reviewed by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) present other dimensions of JPMorgan’s Washington ties. They show that the bank has enlisted former regulators as well as former legislative aides, and they describe specific contacts between those government alumni and current federal regulators.

POGO reviewed disclosures that several federal agencies post about their contacts with outside parties, typically concerning regulations that the agencies are drafting. Information about the background of the former officials was drawn from federal lobbying registration forms, company press releases, news reports, online profiles such as LinkedIn pages, and other sources.

The former officials identified in the agency disclosures are not all registered lobbyists for JPMorgan. But whether or not former officials register or are required to register as lobbyists, they may still be able to play a significant role in the regulatory dialogue.

In some cases, JPMorgan’s government alumni have conferred with regulators as part of groups that included representatives from other firms. In other cases, they participated in discussions limited to regulators and JPMorgan representatives.

JPMorgan’s press office did not respond to requests for comment. Former federal officials who have represented the bank in discussions with the government either did not return calls or declined to discuss the subject.

But Dimon, testifying before a House committee Tuesday, discussed federal rulemaking and the role of lobbying. “Lobbying is a constitutional right, and we have the right to have our voice heard,” he said.

Some discussions are best held in private, he added.

“I have lost this argument publicly many times, but I’ll make it again: Regulation is not binary. It’s not left or right. It’s not Democrat or Republican. These are complex things that should be done the right way in, in my opinion, closed rooms. I don’t think you can make a lot of progress in an open hearing like this.”

JPMorgan's team included these seven former U.S. government officials and one former UK official:

In December, Gilbert was one of several JPMorgan representatives who met with Federal Reserve staff “[a]t the invitation of the Federal Reserve” to discuss a stress test designed to evaluate how well firms could withstand a period of severe economic turmoil, according to a brief Federal Reserve description of the meeting. Topics discussed “included the implications to JP Morgan Chase & Co. of publication of the results,” the Federal Reserve synopsis said.

Valerie Rainford served as a senior vice president of real estate and general services at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, according to a 2006 annual report. An online profile describes her as “Chief of Staff to the Head of Global Compliance” at JPMorgan.

Nazareth said, “If you review the public records of meetings with outside persons it will be clear that the overwhelming majority of meetings are with persons who have no prior government affiliations. The regulatory agencies neither favor nor discriminate against persons with previous government experience.”

Thomas Koonceserved as a legislative director for Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC), a member of the House Financial Services Committee, which held a hearing Tuesday with Dimon and the heads of the major banking and financial regulatory agencies. He has been a registered in-house lobbyist for JPMorgan since 2010, according to lobbying records. A LinkedIn profile describes Koonce as vice president of federal government affairs.

FDIC spokesman David Barr said the agency “routinely meets with outside groups that request meetings on a variety of regulatory and policy issues.” He added that “part of what we do as an insurer and a regulator is we have meetings with individuals.”

CFTC spokesman Steven Adamske said his agency is “not qualified to answer a subjective question about any meeting participant’s prior employment” and its potential influence on the rulemaking process.

Federal Reserve Board spokeswoman Barbara Hagenbaugh noted that government ethics laws spell out what former officials can and cannot do.

SEC spokesman John Nester said, “As you know from your private meeting with the SEC staff, we meet daily with a wide range of public and private individuals on a host of issues. One’s past employment doesn’t provide special access.”

In his congressional testimony Tuesday, Dimon said that JPMorgan has good reasons to participate in the policy debate. “We have as much a vested interest in having a safe and good financial system as anybody else, and we’ll do anything we can to be part of a process to make it healthy and safe,” he said.

Comments

Our only hope is these people are moral and ethical. However, the world seems to be leaning more and more to greedy pigs making the rules. The only way to slow this trend down is to make the penalties tougher for the criminal element that is moving into the policy making world. Until the pigs see that the penalties for their crimes outweigh the profit they will flurish.

By his own admission, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon testified at a U.S. Senate Banking Committee hearing in June that the Dodd-Frank law has not solved problems facing Wall Street, but instead has created a confusing new regulatory system for banks. “What we set up is a system with more and more regulators. We don’t actually know who has jurisdiction over many of the issues we are dealing with anymore. I would prefer a simple, clean, strong regulatory system, with real intelligent design, but that's not what we did.”

When elites are held in check, typically by effective legal mechanisms, everyone else in society does much better and sustained economic growth becomes possible. But powerful people - kings, barons, industrialists, bankers - work long and hard to relax the constraints on their actions. And when they succeed, the effects are not just redistribution toward themselves but also an undermining of economic growth and often a tearing at the fabric of society.

Please sign the petition to the U.S. Senate Banking and House Financial Services Committee asking for improved oversight of federal banking and market regulators.

To read more about what we’re trying to do and to sign the petition, click here:
http://www.change.org/petitions/u-s-senate-banking-and-u-s-house-financial-services-committees-use-technology-to-provide-oversight-of-u-s-banking-and-market-regulators?share_id=HTpDoOQNJgpe=d2e

From your research can you provide a simple list of names? I will also forward this link to Senator Sanders via Twitter. Please get in touch with him if you're not already.

I think he is the only person in both houses of the US Congress who is not bought, paid for and owned by these criminal banks. Jamie, as a stand alone criminal, has to go down. And he will be removed with public pressure.

Also, interesting to dig into: I sent a message to dgriffin10@bloomberg.net regarding a story he wrote this week:

New York City Comptroller John Liu, whose office controls about 9 million Citigroup shares, has not been consulted, according to Matthew Sweeney, a spokesman. The comptroller’s office voted against Pandit’s compensation plan. Shannon Bell, a Citigroup spokeswoman, declined to say who had been contacted. O’Neill didn’t immediately respond to e-mailed requests for comment.

Hello Mr. Griffin:

Can you please provide more information about why NYC Comptroller's office controls 9 million Citigroup shares? Why does the City of New York own shares of a bank? What? We really need this question answered.

Thanks for the info.
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Something is strange when it comes to the NYC comptroller *controlling* shares of Citybank. Bloomy could effectively "manage" his own gains through manipulation of stock owned by NYC.

Try to imagine for a moment what it would be like if the republinos take the presidency, 60 seat majority in the senate and a majority in the house. No more social security, no more medicare, vouchers for about $100 a month to cover all your health needs including prescriptions, no more teachers, police, or firefighters, in the public sector. Plenty in the private sector if you can afford to pay them. No more minimum wage, if you want a job you will work for what they tell you you will work for. My very first job while I was in high school, I started at $.90 an hour (about 1960), that will be the new minimum wage of today. The military will be on steroids bombing Iran, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, with boots on the ground in all four countries. The more you make the more you keep and the lower your federal income tax rate if they keep the IRS. They may eliminate the IRS and you must pay a federal sales tax of roughly 15% on everything you buy including food. No more welfare checks, no more unemployment checks, and no more food stamps. The only abortions performed will be in one of two places: In a private hospital with the best doctors and medical staff and equipment available for the rich with money as no object or in the back ally with a coat hanger performed by a stranger for free. This is just the tip of the iceberg, it will get worse as time goes on. The best jobs for the 99% will be limo driver, butler, maid, gardener, pool keeper, horse groomer, and auto mechanic.